Balance bunker under construction at Mitsubishi

Friday

H.J. High Construction of Orlando and Batson-Cook Co. of Atlanta have broken ground on the construction of a new element at Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas new plant at the Pooler megasite.

The high-speed balance bunker, which will be housed in a separate 25,000-square-foot building at Mitsubishi’s Savannah Machinery Works, will be one of the largest in the Western hemisphere and will be capable of balancing Mitsubishi’s largest nuclear steam turbine and generator rotors.

Huge internal turbine components, some as large as 12 feet in diameter and as heavy as 150 tons, will be balanced and verified at speeds between 1,800 and 3,600 revolutions per minute in this reinforced concrete bunker.

The bunker, a modification of similar facilities used by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan, was designed by a team from The Austin Co. of Cleveland in conjunction with Mitsubishi.

The chamber will be contained within a single-story, precast and insulated metal panel building, conventionally framed with steel columns, beams and joists.

The chamber itself will be constructed of reinforced concrete walls, seven feet thick and lined with inner and outer steel capable of withstanding nearly zero atmosphere under vacuum.

The structure will be connected to the main manufacturing facility by a rail line.

Fewer than a dozen balance bunkers exist in the United States, according to Batson-Cook vice president Wendell Martin.

“It’s an honor to construct one of the elite manufacturing facilities in the nation,” he said.

The project, which broke ground in August, is scheduled to be complete in November 2012.

High and Batson-Cook will build the plant’s Phase 3 simultaneously with the balance bunker.

Mitsubishi’s Savannah plant is designed to produce advanced steam and gas turbines and to service turbines and related components for power generation. The Pooler plant, which is being constructed in three phases, will serve the company’s customers in North and South America.

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